Agapic Chants
Agapic Chants are simple, musical repetitions drawn from real human struggles. They do what sacred music has always done: bring us into our bodies, move what is stuck, connect us to each other and to something larger. Without requiring belief in anything except the experience itself.
Something shifts when people realize a simple truth: listening to the world's best singer is not the same as using your own voice. Singing together, in real space and time, is nourishing in ways we've almost forgotten.
But we have a problem. We don't know the songs.
The village had songs. The church had songs. Even pop music once served this function — shared refrains a whole generation could sing together in a car, at a party, in a moment of grief. That musical commons is gone. And what replaced it was built for listening, not for singing together.
I've spent four decades developing as a musician, and I honor that craft deeply in myself and in others. But singing together provides a different kind of value — the way going for a walk is different from watching a peak athlete on YouTube. Both real, both worth having. One of them requires you to show up with your own body and do it (and reap the benefits).
Be just the way you are, I'll be happy to be with you.
Trust in life as it is, I welcome it.
There is love. You are loved.
Each chant begins with a one-on-one session — someone shares what they're carrying, and together we make it into a song. With their permission, it joins the repertoire — sung during chanting evenings and on Sundays at the Church of Interbeing. What was private becomes communal. What was heavy becomes light enough to carry together.
"Agapic Chants was a magical experience. It transformed one of my deepest sorrows that previously felt like it had no bottom, into a poem that I was here to express in the world."
— Rosa Lewis, mystic and teacher
The goal is a songbook of 20 songs — recordings, lyrics, chords, and sheet music in one digital object. Pass it to a friend who plays guitar, chant along with a bluetooth speaker, get everyone singing at a family dinner or a gathering of neighbors. Simple enough to use anywhere. Grounded in real lives.
This is not a product. It is a practical answer to a real absence — a small act of rebuilding something we have quietly lost.
Come Join a Small Circle of Founding Supporters
I'm looking for a few people who feel the importance of this work and want to help make it real. Your support funds 20 Agapic Chant Sessions, studio recordings, and the production of the songbook.
In return, you'll be named as a founding supporter in the songbook, and part of a larger movement in the Church of Interbeing and beyond. I'll also write a chant with you — or invite you to sing the ones we've already made, if you prefer.
Nathan Vanderpool is a musician and ceremony holder based in Berlin. He is building the Agapic Chants Songbook with the Church of Interbeing. His previous projects include Respond, supported by the Vervaeke Foundation.
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